This came to my attention today. It is a warning to all those "dealing" with pirated training materials and unauthorized certification contents. See how some authorities are dealing with this[ illegal activity.|http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1199690&pageid=0] and take care to avoid

Yes, as a matter of fact, here in Asia, we have also discovered that some training centers have offered 'so call' SAP training. Close scrutiny revealed that the course materials are out-dated, there are no server for exercises and the materials are based on bootlegged training and project materials from yester-years. For a list of Asian based authorized training center, you can click http://www.sap.com/asia/services/education/centres/partners.epx - Abdy (Monsoon Academy)

Imparting the right knowledge, at the right time, anywhere can be realised by undergoing training through any SAP Education Partner. The Training can be either Instructor Led or by Online Training (E-learning).

For a list of SAP training details across the globe, please visit the following link

As we are only talking about fake SAP training in india. How about US & Canada. There are so many private owned SAP schools in canada who provide SAP fake training. I think you'll find 20 schools only in toronto and making fool people. There should be way to stop it and close these illegal schools. I am wondering why SAP is not doing anything or intentionally ignoring it becuase to get popular..

SAP does not have *any* licensed/authorized training centers in North America, so it is safe to assume that any training provided in North America by anyone other than SAP is unauthorized, but you cannot assume that they're doing anything illegal.

Theoretically it would be ok for a company to provide training as long as they did not use SAP's copyrighted materials. They also could not legally provide system access for their students unless they entered in some form of license agreement with SAP. SAP does provide a trial version of the software for individual use, but I don't think usage of the trial instances in a commercial training setting is allowed by the terms of service (but I'd have to reread the license agreement to be sure.).

However, since you don't have to attend authorized training in North America to sit for Certification exams, you could, in theory, attend unauthorized training with completely novel training materials without system access and still pass the certification exams. I don't think that's an effective way to study for certification exams, personally, but it might work for some.

Anyway, my point is that you can't necessarily assume that a company providing unauthorized SAP training is doing anything illegal. That's why law enforcement and SAP have to work together to shut places down.

It would be great if SAP could provide a tip line where we could report suspected instances of copyright and/or license violation since you can do a quick google search and find more than a few candidates, but the effort involved in verifying that the suspected pirate is actually committing a crime is such that occasional high profile busts of egregious offenders is about as much as we should expect from SAP.

I do applaud the fact that SAP is bringing this to light again as these training centers are responsible for a great deal of misery due to the fact that they set unrealistic expectations in folks, take their money, and leave them worse off than when they began.

Some of the authorized training partners are guilty of this as well (Disreputable ATP --> "Sure! All you need is 25 days of training to get certified and a lifetime of high paying consulting work is yours! Just sign here and pay your money!"), but some of the more reputable ones make it clear that certification should not be attempted until after you've had a few years of on-the-job experience with SAP.

Unfortunately, many of these institutes uses pirated SAP software. There must be very few firms following the SAP licensing agreement. The piracy is one of the saddest thing, but it is the reality. SAP might be selling their software for million pounds, but, in the market, for $10 dollars people are creating pirates SAP software. It is is unlikely / impossible for SAP stop this piracy, though it is the need of the hour.

SAP says that it is copyrighted materials and should not be distributed freely. Mostly, if I see, these words are for only text week. If I go to google, you name any SAP Certification material, freely available on the google to download. Unfortunately, some of the people are selling this SAP Certification materials, illegally. These people are minting money from the innocent people. They have not put one percent effort, but still they are enjoying the gains. SAP clearly must be knowing this, but, they cannot do anything. It is highly impossible to restrict these types of fraudsters. They will always find the loopholes in the system. I am surprised some of them are selling materials, which are very new and for peculiar SAP course. Usually, these type of courses are not even available in Authorised Training Centers. That means, the culprits must be within SAP or in some authorised institutes. If that is the case, SAP should restrict the use of these materials to their employees. (may be in display mode). My question is, otherwise, how these materials are being came from SAP to the fraudsters? Probably, SAP should find the root cause of this piracy problem.

First, you need to find out if there are ANY authorized providers in your region. The process doesn't work consistently, but it's worth a shot.

Go to www.sap.com. Make sure the country on the very top is the country in which you are interested. (For the sake of example, choose Colombia.) On the next page, click Services. Should be a box slightly to the left of center along the bottom. If you see something that says education, resist the temptation to click it for now! Now, on the left you should see a menu that says SAP Education, and under that a link that says Education Parnters. These are the only Authorized Education Partners in the country! Now for the confusing part.

Not every country has Authorized Education Partners. SAP handles it's own training in most of North America and Europe. If you follow the above instructions and you do NOT see an Authorized Education Partners link (which you won't if you're checking for UK), then I recommend calling the SAP Education Center for your region and confirming that by phone. If you want authorized training in a country in which SAP handles the training, you must go through SAP itself. SAP has many options for training, both in person and on-line, so it shouldn't be that much of a hardship, hopefully.

In these same regions, though, it is not necessary to attend authorized training in order to sit for an exam, so you are free to learn from books and trial versions of the software on your own and then sign up for the exam. (I've written about this in a few blogs, check here for a list of blogs you might find helpful if you're trying to learn about SAP).

The confusion comes in because SAP does not provide direct training in most parts of Asia Pacific and Central/South America/Africa. In those regions you MUST go through an Authorized Training Partner in order to sit for an exam unless you want to jump through some pretty significant hoops (2 complete, verified, go lives plus sponsorship from an authorized partner or SAP customer). In those countries, you can often find a list of authorized partners if you dig around hard enough. It would be great if those lists were easier to find. Here are the lists for Asia Pacific, Brazil, and Mexico).

You need to have minimum of 2 years experience to take up direct SAP Certification,i.e. without any training. So, you will have to wait until you gain 2 years of experience and it is true that you have to be part of atleast one implementation to be eligible to take up direct SAP Certification.

I cant guide you on BI though,but I can definitely say that just 8 months of exp on ABAP is not enough to start thinking about another modue.

Please check the Blogs for folks interested in Certification or just in learning SAP functionality section of the SAP Career Blog Links blog for more detailed information, but the short answer is that in India, you have to have 2 years of verified experience plus sponsorship from an SAP customer or authorized partner to sit the exam. If you can travel, you could go to a country that does not have this requirement (United States, United Kingdom, or Australia, for example) and sit for the exam there just by signing up. If you are an ABAPer, then you should sit for the ABAP exam. Taking a BI class and getting BI certification won't help you at all in your ABAP career.

What about the low standards at SAP Authorized Training Centers? SAP focuses so much on fake training center and I totally agree they are bad for everyone.

But has anyone looked at the Standards at SAP Authorized Training Centers. I am currently doing ABAP Class TAW10 at NIIT Mumbai Center (SAP Authorized Training Partner) and everyday we have to spend 2-3 hours in getting the infrastruture set up.

At time there is no Internet Connectivity, some time Screen Sharing with the Trainer does not works - there is no support personnel in the center and center has to call some one from outside everytime.

When we complain to people managing the center - they say sorry and tell us they are trying to fix it.

who is losing here? the Students who have paid the fees and are losing time and money. Center has made it's money and students suffer.

Wow... Just Wow. How ballsy do you have to be to post a non-authorized education institute advertisement in the middle of a discussion about the dangers of taking training from a non-authorized education institute! I checked the official list (http://www.sap.com/asia/services/education/centres/partners.epx) and they're not on it.